Places I Have Visited - A to Z

 I will mix up countries and Cities/Towns.

A- Amsterdam

B- Belgium

C- Cambodia

D- Detroit

E- El Paso, texas

F-France

G- Germany

H- Holland

I- Italy

J- Japan

K- Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (Wright Bros.' first flight)

L- Los Angeles, California

M- Malaysia

N- Negombo

O- Orlando, Florida

P- Phoenix, Arizona

Q- Quepem, goa

R- Richmond, Virginia

S- Sri Lanka

T- Thailand

U- Ubud, Bali

V- Venice

W- Washington, D.C.

X- Xanadu, a mythical place I first found in Mandrake comics

Y- Yellowstone National Park
Z- Zurich

Interesting Place Names

 Passed a place called Garam Pani today, and a railway station called Lanka yesterday. Also a raliway station called Hojai yesterday. Our local guide to the North East comes from Margherita- a town near Tinsukia in Assam's upper end. I had incidentally visited it in 1983 during my MBA internship.

Vietnam had a street called Hang Bong. No idea why they want to hang the Bong.

Karepalli, Chimalpahad and Tadkalpudi were names of stations along the Bhandrachalam Road to Dornakal railway line-our lifeline growing up.

Yellandu was one of the places our coal mining company had started mines in. We all enjoyed descending into inclines once in a while.

Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas

 Pals from various places. An attempt at a comprehensive classification of my pals, geographically.

Australia- Pooja Daniel, Sanjeev Undri

Dubai- Smita Mohan

China- Yapin

Sri Lanka- Samudrika

USA- Nidhi Kanungo, Annie, Samren, Leslie, Ron and family, Dr. Soni, and Athena, Kamalesh Nayudu, Avadhanulu, Seshu, Nandakumar (Junior), Jockey, Zoom, 

New Zealand- Chasha and Ruab, Gurvinder Singh

Canada- Vaseem, Tanya Shrivastava, Radhax, 

Finland- Anusha, Bhawana Moondra

UK- Senior (Nandakumar), Shuchi Bhatnagar

Hyderabad- Jogi, Venu, Nagarjuna, Nagu, Ramesh, Basudev and lots more, Pratima of Satara fame. HPS classmates galore, including Dattu, Krishna, Praveen (part-time resident).. Aditi Gupta ( lived in South Carolina too)

Lithuania- Natalija

Delhi- Shruti, Aditya, Nikita, Shweta, Sunil Kataria, Harish Chaudhry, Himanshu, Harish Arora, Pradeep Acharya, Kanika Mhendiratta, Padmapriya

Jaipur- Achint, Garima Shah

Bhubaneswar- Ramana, Banikanta Mishra, 

Lucknow- Bhuvneet, Anam, BK Mohanty

Mumbai- Bhagyalakshmi, Sheetal Garg, Abha, Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha, Pallavi Sharma

(Originally from) M.P. -Tosha Dubey, Anusha Soni, Pooja Shukla, Manuja Seth, lots in IIM Indore

Bangalore- Bharath, Nagendra, Shailaja Gupta, Anushka Mishra, Savitha, lots of IIMB classmates- Prabhakar, Himanshu, Ramesh, Lingu, Sid-Shubha,.. SP Kumar, Manasa, Sowmyashree, Rajiv Krishnan, Ram Seshu, Muthu

Chennai- Vijayakumar, Lady Daga (Bhawana)

 

Places That I Remember Visiting

 Some unusual places first.

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, where 4 Presidential faces are carved into a mountain, in the U.S.. 

Kodikkarai, on the east coast of Tamilnadu, a nice drive from the deep.

Daman, on the West Coast, a tipplers' delight for those from the Dry state of Gujarat. Daman is a Union Territory which does not have Prohibition.

Tirunelveli, in the deep South again, known for its halwa- a gooey, colourful sweet that is made really well. Calicut also made something similar, I remember.

Chilika Lake, in Orissa/Odisha, that I visited in 1991, with a friend. The waters were choppy, and our boat was not confidence-inspiring.

Pulicat Lake (another Salt Water lake) and the Dutch Cemetery. The Cemetery is badly kept, but worth a visit. The lake, even more worthy of a visit and a boat ride. Near Chennai.

Ethipothala waterfall is near Nagarjuna Sagar dam in Telangana, and the waterfall is visible from a tourist cottage set up opposite.

Jog Falls, Karnataka. Majestic in the rainy season. Climbed down to the base a couple of times..it's a steep climb back.

Places Like No Other

 There are many places with a unique flavour to them (not just the food!), across the world. Here are a few in my list. All these I have visited at least once.

Japan as a country is unique in many ways. They are extremely polite, and cellphones are not used in most public places. Efficiency is prized, and trains and buses run on time.

Greece. The islands are a unique mix of Mediterranean blue and homes in white. 

Sri Lanka. Emerald isle indeed. Very beautiful, friendly people.

Vietnam. Hard working people, and one of the fastest growing economies, with good reason. After all, they beat the U.S. in a war earlier.

Ladakh is a cold mountain/desert with great views, and I haven't seen anything like it anywhere. My daughter visited again to do a course at Sonam Wangchuk's place, and got to see some Ice Stupas too, used to store water.

Coonoor, Darjeeling.. Tea gardens are the unique thing in both.

Yellowstone National Park..Very large, diverse, with Host springs, geysers, Buffalo (American variety) and lots more

Bryce Canyon- amazing sight, unforgettable. Grand Canyon too.

Las Vegas. Mayanagari in a desert. Unique, heady feeling that makes you bet big at the casinos..one almost empathises with the Pandavas.

 

Names and Places

Vidisha is the first that comes to mind-she was a student at IMT Ghaziabad. The place is in M.P. Rewa is another, she was my student at Indore. Om Shivpuri was an actor, and Shivpuri is in M.P. too.

Javagal Srinath comes from Javagal, Salil Ankola from Ankola, and A.K. Hangal from Hangal. Deepika and her illustrious dad from Padukone (Guru Dutt too, though he did not use the last name). These are places in Karnataka. Bezawada Gopala Reddy and Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu were prominent people from Andhra, and bore the place names of Bezawada (Viijayawada's earlier avatar), and Tangutur.

Of course, most kars are from the place that precedes the kar. Belagaumkar, Hublikar, Nargundkar, Dharwadkar are some examples. Some people don't use the kar, so you find a Nargund as a surname too.

A Savant may be from Savantwadi. (We had one at Kirloskar Institute, Ameet). I think C.K. Prahalad, the management guru derives the C from Coimbatore.

Movies and Memories

Where I saw a film..sometimes, these are finely etched memories. I saw Jewel Thief for the first time when we lived in Kothagudem, my birthplace in A.P. Abhinetri, Hathi Mere Sathi and Hare Rama Hare Krishna  in Bellampalli.(a pic of the railway station below).

Sholay (and Guns of Navarone, and Shareef Badmash), at Ramakrishna 70 mm. in Hyderabad. Chitchor at Ramakrishna 35 mm. Don at Tarakarama, and Namak Halaal at Maheshwari 70 mm. Mohra at Venkataramana. Karz at Santosh. Silent Movie (Mel Brooks) and The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu in Srinivasa, Narayanguda. Where Eagles Dare at Farheen 70 mm. Ijaazat at Zamarrud. Khel Khel Mein at Skyline. Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars at Sangeet, Secunderabad. Darr at Manju, Secunderabad. Paheli at Royal. The Pink Panther series, Murder on the Orient Express at Liberty, Hyderabad.

DDLJ at Davangere. Akele Hum Akele Tum at Harihar. Sharaabi at Delhi. Love 86 in Mumbai in 1986. Mungaaru Male (Kannada film) at Bangalore.

Baazigar, and much later, Shivaji, the Boss (Rajnikant) at Nagpur. Mission Kashmir at Rajmahal in Jaipur. Chandni Chowk to China at Amritsar (!!). Taraana while visiting an aunt at Satna (M.P.). 

In the U.S., A Fish Called Wanda, The Naked Gun, Dick Tracy. One Bond film (don't remember which one).

Finding Fanny in Indore. Bahubali also. Masaan in Mumbai. Chennai Express at Trichy.

Why You Remember Places

Why do we remember certain places more than others? There are two kinds of places I am talking of-places where we have lived, and places which we have visited.

In both cases, a common reason may be the people we associate with the place. I have lived at least a year in the following places- Kothagudem, Bellampalli, Ramagundam, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Clemson, Greenwood (both in the U.S.), Bhubaneswar, Harihar, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Nagpur, Indore.

 Indonesia

 Udaipur

 Me at Athens, Greece and (below) my wife in Clemson, SC, USA.

Of these, the longest spell at one place as a grownup was at Harihar, where we had small class sizes in our MBA program, and therefore I tend to remember the students pretty well, even with my fading memory cells. There was also another unrelated reason to remember the place itself. An 18-hole Golf course in our colony (thanks to the Kirloskars) made me feel like a millionaire.

Nagpur, a campus (IMT) that was scenic, and people who were among the nicest anywhere, changed my ideas about the place ('hot as hell' would have been the earlier idea)- staff and students included, but the general population too.

Clemson was great for its atmosphere, scenic beauty, and what it taught me- the first baby steps towards research. Teaching too- as a graduate assistant, where I taught undergrads who were more scared of computers than I was!

Visiting places I liked in the U.S. were Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park. In Europe, Rome, Athens and Northwest France (Brittany) are places I remember the most. In Asia, it has to be Japan and Camobodia, which are very different, but memorable, though I also liked Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

At the Kodai golf course with Ravindra Gadgil, a colleague from IMT

Indian destinations that I like include diverse ones like Mandu, Jog Falls, Konarak, Hampi, Lonar, Leh, Goa, Udaipur, Nainital, Srinagar, Kodaikanal (for its Golf too), Kinnersani in A.P. where we had lots of outings as kids, and Bangalore and Hyderabad among the cities. 

Names Derived From Places

We have a lot of names or surnames derived from places. An example- my surname is derived from a small town called Nargund in Karnataka. Javagal is a town in Karnataka, and so is Padukone. This (adding a 'kar' after the name of a place to create a surname) is a common practice in Maharashtra- so you have Solapurkars, Chalisgaonkars, and Punekars.

Atal Behari Vajpayee may or may not have been from Bihar, but maybe S.H. Bihari, the lyricist was. Lyricists have this trend among them of naming themselves after their place- Sahir Ludhianvi, Rahat Indori, and Hasrat Jaipuri are examples.

In Andhra, where I grew up, the village name is used as an initial, if not the family name-sometimes both are initials.

You could call this the game of the name.

Rahat Indori

Just trying to recollect people with names like the headlined one. The film line had a few, like Sahir Ludhianvi, Hasrat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Firaqt Gorakhpuri, etc.

In our side (hamaare wahan) it is common to have a 'kar' suffixed to the gaon- as in Nargund 'kar' rather than an 'i' like the above example. An 'e' at the end as in Raje, Bhide, Gore, Khare (means 'true' in Marathi), Khote (means falsehood) also signifies some names in those places, though there are no place-names attached/embedded.

Srinath the fast bowler was from Javagal. AK Hangal presumably from Hangal, a place in Karnataka, and Prakash Padukone, you guessed it- from Padukone. By the way, so was Guru Dutt (he was not Bengali).

Surnames are often derived from professions or titles, like Mistry, Batliwala, Tailor, Carpenter, or Cabinetmaker. Or Joshi, Patwari and so on. Or how many Vedas you could claim mastery over- two, three or four (Dwivedi, Trivedi, Chaturvedi respectively).

Place Names in Songs

Place names in songs sometimes bring in the patriotic fervour, as in 'Yeh mera India, I love my India,' or 'Hai preet jahan ki reet sada, main geet wahan ke gaata hoon, bharat ka rehne wala hoon, bharat ke geet sunata hoon.' (Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Kumar respectively).

Sometimes, the reference is to an ornament which fell in a marketplace (Jhumka gira re, Bareilly ke bazaar mein), or exotic locations where love blossoms (Night in London, An Evening in Paris, or Love in Tokyo). The hero sometimes proclaims his antecedents, as in Rampur ka basi hoon main, lakshman mera naam.

Bambai se gayi Poona, ...se gayi Patna, phir bhi na mila sajna, is the lament of Juhi Chawla in a song.

In the old-time farmaish or 'request' song shows on radio, even the names of towns the requests came from were very entertaining. The most famous among them was Jhumritalaiya, but there were many frequent ones like Rajnandgaon, Jabalpur and Kathgodam. Shekhupura in Pakistan figured regularly in All India Radio's Urdu service, for some reason.

Songs with Place Names

There are a lot of Hindi film songs that have place names in them. Here are some that come to mind-

Jhumka gira re Bareilly ke bazaar mein

Mere piya gaye Rangoon wahan se kiya tele phoon

Ee hai Bambai nagariya tu dekh babua..from Don

Dilli se gayi Patna ...phir bhi na mila sajna

Bombay to Goa title song...Bom, bom Bombay Goa..

Saala main to sahab ban gaya....jaise Gora koi London ka..

An Evening in Paris..title song... aisa mauka phir kahan milega..

Potti patana hain phakat kaam apun ka....Hum Hyderabadi.

There is also an old Marathi song that goes..'disashi tu navtaruni Kashmiri' (you look like a young Kashmiri beauty) 

Weird Places- contd.

Chateau D' If, off Marseilles in France. Setting where The Count of Monte Cristo is based. Had an Indian style toilet on the island.

Greece- the whole country behaves like India does. Including the economy getting into trouble. We were already there in 1991. Only, the Mediterranean/Aegean waters are bluer. And Hindi is not Greek to me. They even have Gods who behave like ours. And have written epics about them.

Nandi Hills near Bangalore- apparently the only reason people go there is to drink beer. I guess people are weird, not the place.

Airports with aerobridges lying idle- as you can guess, I am sitting at one. Gotta go, or I'll miss the bus.

Weirdest Places I Have Been to

There's a website advertised that lets you advertise places that you have travelled to, I believe. Like the websites that tell you what colour your necklace should be, which celebrity you will be reborn as, or things of that sort, if you get the drift. So I thought I would join the movement by listing the weirdest -ok, unusual, if you don't like the word weird- places I have visited.

Gatlinburg in the U.S. is one of them, for sure. The only time we thought of it was when the Fall colours were in full bloom, that is, trees were orange and yellow instead of green. Gatlinburg was a mountain full of these multi-hued trees. One time, we drove 4 hours to get there from Clemson, and drove right back coz there were no rooms available in the whole town.

The four-Presidential-faces-carved-in-stone fame Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Had it not been for the man who carved those, South Dakota might have had a visitor population of zero. I am not even sure there is a population of any kind there, visiting or non-visiting.

Pisa in Italy, with its famous tower. It's the only tower (or building) I know which does a Hamlet, as in, 'To Fall or Not to Fall' is its existential dilemma. Shakespeare would have loved it!

The Old Faithful geyser that shoots a spray of hot water every 45 minutes in the Yellowstone National Park, USA. The question is, who is it faithful to, and why?

Kolkata today would take the cake, not because of the place itself, but the special person ruling over the state, who is, shall we say, a bit unusual? Why, Mr. Tughlaq suddenly looks cool.